Houston needs to find a lot of better baseball players to play in those new uniforms. They could lose 110 games next year.

GM Jeff Luhnow is in housecleaning mode to clear out deadweight on the 40 man roster and keep some of their better prospects off the available Rule 5 draft list. They're currently under $40M in total payroll.

Once that's over, I expect a few low risk additions to fill the vacant spots in the outfield, a inning-eating starter and a few bullpen arms, not to mention a better bat for DH, possibly Lance Berkman.

Also, there's talk that Jarred Cosart and Jonathan Singleton (their two best prospects) could grab a job in spring, with George Springer and some of other the pitchers grabbed in the Bourn and Pence deals not far behind.

100 losses are certainly possible next year, but I'm thinking they'll be in the mid 90s.

GM Jeff Luhnow is in housecleaning mode to clear out deadweight on the 40 man roster and keep some of their better prospects off the available Rule 5 draft list. They're currently under $40M in total payroll.

Once that's over, I expect a few low risk additions to fill the vacant spots in the outfield, a inning-eating starter and a few bullpen arms, not to mention a better bat for DH, possibly Lance Berkman.

Also, there's talk that Jarred Cosart and Jonathan Singleton (their two best prospects) could grab a job in spring, with George Springer and some of other the pitchers grabbed in the Bourn and Pence deals not far behind.

100 losses are certainly possible next year, but I'm thinking they'll be in the mid 90s.

They need more starting pitching than a single innings-eater. Now they may be willing to just suck it up for another year and lose 90+ - that seems to be the vogue with "smart" organizations (although their GM came out of the Jockety line, I believe, which really doesn't sanction 90+ loss seasons as a good thing in rebuilding).
I don't see how they can have quality prospects up for Rule 5 considering how bad they've been. Surely they've managed the 40 man better than that.

They need more starting pitching than a single innings-eater. Now they may be willing to just suck it up for another year and lose 90+ - that seems to be the vogue with "smart" organizations (although their GM came out of the Jockety line, I believe, which really doesn't sanction 90+ loss seasons as a good thing in rebuilding).
I don't see how they can have quality prospects up for Rule 5 considering how bad they've been. Surely they've managed the 40 man better than that.

The 40-man shifting is because they added a ton of guys to the system through big league deals last year and they dumped guys like Schaefer and Bogusevic who weren't in the plans moving forward.

That probably will be less important the next few years as players start to establish themselves.

As for the pitching, they have Harrell, Norris and Lyles penciled in the rotation. All of which are low-rotation guys on a good team, but there's some ceiling left in the last two. With top prospect Cosart and Wojciechowski or Oberholtzer competing for a rotation spot, only one veteran guy would be needed for a 90+ loss rebuilding team.